But we found we must do more than talk; so we set the drums and trumpets about the ears of the sleepers, and made their comrades shake them with all their might. It was not till after an hour's march, in which coaxing, scolding, and pushing, stimulants to laughter and provocatives to anger, had been incessantly employed in turn, that the vital powers appeared to be in tolerably full play. There was one man more obstinate than the rest, who, in order to get a place on one of the cacolets, threatened every minute to lie down on the ground. I slid among the ranks, and began telling one of his comrades all the horrible stories I knew of those who, yielding to sleep in the cold, had awaked no more; adding, with affected indifference: 'I am afraid we shall have to leave some of our poor men as a supper for the hyenas to-night. There are two or three of them so benumbed and stupified, that they will perish if they halt for a single instant.' In a few minutes, I learned that the soldier had done begging to be carried; he said his strength was returning.
In the midst of so much human distress, it seems almost like trifling to advert to the poor swallows. On awaking in the morning, I had found two under my bed-cover. They allowed themselves to be taken, and either could not, or would not fly away when I tried to banish them. So I put them in the hood of my cloak, and allowed it to fall down my back, while I raised over my head that of the ample burnoose which I wear in the cold above all my other garments. The swallows travelled thus for several hours, and gradually recovered in their warm nest. When the sun emitted some genial rays, I took them out, and set them free. They fluttered for some time round my horse, uttering a little cry, which I took for an expression of gratitude before taking flight into the mountains.
Other companies of them had taken shelter under the matted hair which hangs from the flanks of the camel; and when the pitiless driver persisted in dislodging them, they departed with a plaintive cry, to seek an asylum with a camel whose driver was more hospitable. A sentinel had found one in his pocket during the night, but it paid dearly for its lodging--he roasted it for his supper! These poor birds had fled from the rigours of a European winter, to find cold as severe in the heart of Africa. Alas! how many of us felt that, like the swallows, we had exiled ourselves to improve our fortunes, and were now in danger of perishing. How gladly would we have resigned all our hopes of glory and advantage for the fireside of the modest paternal dwelling!
But before night we encamped in the shelter of the mountains; the chiah, which grew in abundance around us, enabled us to kindle fires, and a salutary reaction took place in the spirits of the troops. According to a common practice of mine, I invited to supper the man whose life I had saved by frightening him into exertion. After swallowing a glass of warm wine, well sugared, and spiced with tincture of cinnamon, he licked his lips, sucked the edges of his glass, and said: 'Thank ye, doctor; but for you I should have been dead,' with a naïveté which I can never forget, and which even now mingles pleasing associations with the thoughts of those days of suffering.
The next day nearly 200 of the men were affected with partial or total blindness. Some had merely a sensation like fatigue of the visual organs, with heaviness, watering, and inflammation of the conjunctive membrane. But with others the pain was acute, the eye much inflamed, and the cornea covered with minute ulcerations. Those who were more slightly affected, marched like persons enveloped in a cloud of smoke, and trying to see their way out of it; they took a few steps with their eyes shut, then half opened them with evident pain to reconnoitre the ground before them, and quickly closed them again. But many had for the time wholly lost their sight; they stumbled on the tufts of halfa, and rolled on the ground, so that we were obliged to hoist them on the cacolets. The general, in a state of much uneasiness, called a council of such members of the military corps of health as were found in his column. Some were of opinion that this epidemic was occasioned by the sudden cold, others that it was attributable to the smoke of the chiah; but the truth is, that, both before and after this period, we had experienced nearly as great extremes of heat by day and cold by night without any such consequences, and that some, who had not approached the chiah fires were as severely affected as those who had. It was concluded, with every appearance of reason, that the real cause was the dazzling light reflected from the snow during our march on the 20th of April. I recollect one artilleryman, who was conducting his gun, when suddenly, as the sun broke out afresh, he stopped, rubbed his eyes, turned his head in every direction, and exclaimed: 'I cannot see; I am quite blind!' Although we had not expected snow in the plains of Sahara, the general had anticipated the effects of the reflection of light from the sand, and the possibility of small particles of it getting into the eyes; and with this view each man had been provided with a green gauze veil. But the soldier dislikes anything out of his regular routine as much as the most ignorant peasant; so when the order was given that these veils should be worn,[3] the soldiers wore them to be sure--in their pockets. I insisted that each man should fasten his on his helmet, and this, too, was done; but it was allowed to fly like a streamer behind, instead of being drawn over the eyes. Happily the epidemic was but temporary, and none permanently suffered the loss of sight as the punishment of his folly.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] All hope abandon ye that enter here.
[3] _Porter_, to carry, is the word by which the French express to wear a thing, so that the error of Cavaignac's soldiers was somewhat more excusable than it would have been in Englishmen.
THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.
_August 1852._
The great heat, which has been more talked about than anything else, if it does not prove that the meteorologists, who predicted that this summer was to bring a return of the warm cycle, were right in their conclusions, at least coincides with their vaticinations. Not least remarkable was the suddenness with which we plunged into it, as though the cause which had produced a precisely similar effect in the United States a month earlier, had slowly crossed the Atlantic for our benefit.
It follows, when 'everybody' is going out of town, that the number of those who stay behind to talk must be greatly diminished; and to see that the things to be talked about undergo a collapse at this season, it is only necessary to look at the newspapers. A new actor, or an out-door place of amusement, is treated to a whole column of criticism, whereas, at other times, they would be dismissed in a brief paragraph. Penny-a-liners of lively imagination, find their reports less subjected to curtailment. Emigration comes in for a considerable share of notice, and the statements put forth of the numbers who sail weekly for Australia and the 'Diggins,' must be taken as decided evidence of a desire to better their condition on the part of a large section of the population. It is easy to foresee that thousands will be disappointed, if they are not made of that stuff which can brave hardship, and triumph over the wild work of pioneer colonisation. Now and then we see accounts of unsuspecting emigrants having been deluded and robbed by a mock 'company,' whose ships are perhaps in the moon, for they are never seen in terrestrial seas; but with so many facilities as now exist for getting a passage in a straightforward, business-like way, it is not easy to understand how it is that people should persist in giving their money to swindlers. It would appear that to some the _verbum sap._ never suffices. Means are not lacking for putting the unwary on their guard, among which the conferences and group-meetings held by the indefatigable Mrs Chisholm are especially to be commended. At these meetings, those who desire to expatriate themselves are informed of the most economical mode of effecting their purpose, and counselled as to what they should do during the voyage. Whatever be the result to those who go, there are indications that the labour-market is bettered for those who stay; in connection with which a noteworthy fact may be mentioned, which is, that in the southern, western, and midland counties, scarcely an Irish labourer is to be seen; and who is there that does not remember what troops of the ragged peasantry used to come over for haymaking and the harvest?
The lovers of the picturesque, who are apt to become migratory at this period of the year, will be glad to hear of Earl de Grey's announcement to the Society of British Architects, that he has repaired Fountains' Abbey--one of the beautiful ruins for which Yorkshire is famous--without modernising its appearance or altering its character. It is to be hoped that so praiseworthy an attempt to preserve a relic of the olden time from decay will find many imitators. Pilgrims will thank his lordship for many a generation to come. And, to leave the past to the present; metropolitan promenaders are about to have a cause of satisfaction, for the embankment of the Thames from Vauxhall Bridge to Chelsea Gardens is at last to be commenced; and London will cease to be the only capital in Europe which cannot obtain a view of its river. If the authorities could be persuaded to extend this beneficial work through the whole length of the city, what popularity would be theirs!